History Series / Wallander

* DirtyCommunists: Deconstructed. The second volume, ''The Dogs of Riga'', mostly takes place in the then-totalitarian state of Latvia, which was in the process of falling apart in the time frame of the series (it ''had'' fallen apart the year before the novel was written, although it wasn't entirely clear what would be happening to the country at that point). It is quite clear that Mankell, while sympathetic to the ideals communism was avowedly intended to serve, strongly detests the Soviet system. Most of the sympathetic characters in the novel at some point criticise the Soviet system for failing to uphold those ideals, and the disparity between incomes of corrupt "public servants" and the rest of the country is a rather notable theme of the book (not to mention the complete lack of any semblance of civil liberties).

** One example is the taxi driver from ''Firewall'' who is robbed and murdered by one of his passengers. It later turns out that he had raped the same passenger when she was younger.

** [[spoiler: Fredrik from the military]]'s death in ''The Revenge'' is very sad. While he's a terrorist who has murdered many people, he looks so broken and sad after all of the shit he has been forced into going through that it's almost impossible not to feel sad when he realizes that he is going to have to be put in prison, which leads him into committing suicide. Even Wallander looks extremely saddened by it.

* TheKillerGetsKilled: The killer for every episode usually ends up getting killed him/herself towards the ending. There are a few exeptions, though.

* {{Adorkable}}: Jussi is simply extremely cute, like a dog should be. What makes it even better is the fact that the dog who portrays Jussi, Gaston, is credited as an actor in season 3.

* AdaptationNameChange: Wallander's father -- named Henning in the novels -- is named Povel in the BBC series.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Martinsson is given a first name in each television series: Magnus in the Branagh series and Jan in the Henriksson series.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Martinsson and Nyberg are given the first names Magnus and Sven, respectively, in the BBC series.
* NeverOneMurder - The population of Ystad must be about 8 by now considering the amount of murders that happen in such a small town. In fact a Creator/TheBBC radio show called More or Less discovered that the Ystad in fiction was the second deadliest place to live after a certain town in [[Series/MurderSheWrote Maine]].

* NeverOneMurder - The population of Ystad must be about 8 by now considering the amount of murders that happen in such a small town. In fact a BBC radio show called More or Less discovered that if Ystad was the second deadliest place to live after a certain town in [[Series/MurderSheWrote Maine]].

* NeverOneMurder - The population of Ystad must be about 8 by now considering the amount of murders that happen in such a small town. In fact a Creator/BBC radio show called More or Less discovered that if Ystad was the second deadliest place to live after a certain town in [[MurderSheWrote Maine]].

* NeverOneMurder - The population of Ystad must be about 8 by now considering the amount of murders that happen in such a small town. In fact a Creator/BBC radio show called More or Less discovered that if Ystad had that amount of crime in real life it would be the second deadliest place to live after a certain town in [[ MurderSheWrote Maine]].

** The BBC Magnus is improbably young ''and'' improbably pretty.

* AxCrazy: A crime-thriller series, it has ALOT of them.

* AdaptationalVillainy: A very minor example. The true killer in ''The Man who Smiled'' isn't shown killing any children in the English version, while in the Swedish version it is so explicitly shown that even his bodyguard looks shocked at the monster that is his own boss.

** Zoran kills two people in a goddamn... what the hell is that thing even? He uses a truck to do it... anyway. When the person he kills' little sister sees Zoran do this, Zoran becomes angry at her for preparing to tell the police about him, and chases the innocent little girl with every chance he gets around the city. No surprise, since Thomas Hanzon has played all types of maniacs. Hell, he has even voiced [[KungFuPanda2 Shen]] in the Swedish dub of ''Kung Fu Panda 2''!

** Erik Wredin is a rare heroic example... well, kind of. He's very

** From the little that we see Solomon talk in ''Firewall'', it is quite easy to see that despite being a sadistic mercenary, he is quite the nice guy.
** The main antagonist in ''Firewall'' James Carter is in fact also affable, and, much like Solomon, is a well-intentioned extremist.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: Wilson, Håkan von Enke's American contact]] in ''The Troubled Man'' is fine with [[spoiler: undermining the Swedish government in the early 1980s]] and threatening Wallander's family. But [[spoiler: Håkan murdering Louise? That's going too far, and Wilson abandons Håkan to Wallander instead of helping him escape.]]

* BigBad: Håkan von Enke is the closest thing the series really ever gets to a consistent big bad, and he appears in two episodes.

** Zoran feels at times more like a victim than a villain, just look at him take those pills or whatever they are in order to stay calm for the day. Oh, he's also a complete psychopath and corrupt official who killed two of his own employees for the heck of it, and then chases an innocent girl who happened to see her brother get killed.